Office of Communications Bill (HL)

House of Lords bills 2001-02 8

Format:

Corporate Author:

Great Britain Parliament House of Lords

Publisher:

TSO (The Stationery Office)

At the centre of the Governments Communications White Paper (Cm 5010) was a proposal to create a unified regulator to replace the existing 5 bodies or office holders (the Broadcasting Standards Commission, the Director General of Telecommunications, the Independent Television Commission, the Radio Authority and the Secretary of State for the Department of Trade and Industry, who has a regulatory role through the Radiocommunications Agency). Because it will be a complicated and time consuming task establish an new regulatory regime and because the Communications Bill will not attain Royal Assent before 2003, this Bill proposes to bring forward the establishment of an Office of Communications and to give it a preparatory function to ease the transition.